Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 19, 1994 TAG: 9410190052
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Sandra Brown Kelly
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company now has more than 500 music stores and is building one of its Music Plus stores on Virginia 419 in Roanoke County.
Will it be the bear that it has been in the video business?
"It's already learning that the music business is no mom-and-pop world," Scott Bargerstock, director of store operations for National Record Mart Inc., said Tuesday.
Bargerstock oversaw stores in the Roanoke Valley for 10 years for NRM. He now is in the company's corporate offices in Carnegie, Pa., but was back here two weeks ago to visit the recently relocated and enlarged NRM Plus store at Towers Shopping Center. He also took the opportunity to look in on Blockbuster's local action.
A couple of months ago, Blockbuster acquired the Tracks music store at Tanglewood Mall and the Record Bar store at Valley View Mall.
It has installed the new name on those sites and added listening posts so customers can hear music before purchasing it. Listening posts are a lunch-counter version of the old music booths that graced many good music shops in the 1950s.
When Bargerstock visited the Tanglewood Blockbuster, he said he found "half of the listening posts out of order and the other half vacant."
You could almost hear him crow about it. (Some still were out of order this week.)
Roanoke will be only the second market in which NRM has gone head-to-head with a Blockbuster Music Plus, Bargerstock said. The first was Canton, Ohio, where NRM operates a Music Oasis store. Bargerstock claims its sales didn't have a "glitch" because of Blockbuster's arrival in Canton.
Blockbuster may be the "new kid" in music, as he calls it, but there are sure to be some price cuts and specials flying around when its superstore comes here.
In addition to NRM, the Roanoke area already has the home-grown and privately owned Record Exchange, a Camelot Music Inc. store and a Musicland.
None, however, has a setup like Blockbuster is constructing across from one of its video stores near Virginia 419's intersection with Starkey Road.
Although Blockbuster doesn't discuss its stores before they open, a spokesman said we're probably getting a typical store. (See the accompanying graphic for details.)
In addition to listening posts, a Blockbuster Music Plus offers music information via touch-screen computer, a video-game section where customers try out the games, and a kid's play area called Discovery Zone.
Discovery Zone can be loosely described as way beyond Chuck E Cheese.
No matter what else is where, there always will be earphones and seats where customers can listen to music.
Listening posts are Blockbuster's "modus operandi," said Joe Bressi, senior vice president with Camelot.
Although some Camelot stores also have areas where customers can listen to music before buying, the Canton company's "M.O." is its frequent-buyer program, Bressi said.
But it's not just other music stores that are competitors, a Musicland executive pointed out.
The CD sellers also are under pressure from bookstores that have added music items, discounters like Circuit City and department stores that have returned CDs and cassettes to their stock, Brad Tait said. He is the division vice president for music stores.
The way Tait sees it, all music stores are fighting to "carve out a piece of the pie."
Musicland is experimenting with the sale of computer disks in some stores. It also has gone the superstore route, with stores ranging from 6,000 square feet to 15,000 square feet. Some include a comic-book boutique, a gift shop and a cafe.
So where will it all end?
With fewer companies and a consolidation in the industry, Tait said.
Before that happens, take advantage of the specials that are sure to start flying when the "buster" opens.
by CNB